Any tale chronicling human suffering at the hands of the Nazis is inevitably going to be harrowing and upsetting, and this one is no exception. As the sub-title tells us, it’s about a family ripped apart by war and when two of the family members are small boys it becomes even more compelling. I was indeed gripped by the story, especially as I did not know the outcome before starting, but I did find the book overly long and a bit of ruthless editing wouldn’t have come amiss. There’s a lot of background and history, especially about the plots to kill Hitler, and although these are relevant up to a point, I think the suspense and tension would have been better maintained without so much detail. The basic story of a mother looking for her children is drama enough. Nevertheless, it’s a powerful and moving read and I very much enjoyed it.

some difficult years of the mid 20th century. In September Fey Pirzio-Biroli is arrested by the Germans in the newly re-occupied area of Udine in northern Italy and transferred to Innsbruck. While there, she is separated from her two sons Corradino (4) and Robertino (2) who are transferred to a Gestapo run orphanage nearby under assumed names. Fey will be held until the end of the war and then the search by the family will start to see if the boys survived and whether they can be returned across a fractured Europe “at peace”.
Having said that, the book will not heavily consider the fate or lives of the boys – "tinies" do not write their own records of life – but more about Fey and her wider family. The book will follow their lives in Germany and Italy as Germany is Nazified, into the Second World War, through Italy and Germany as allies, the surrender of Italy and the invasion by Germany of the north, partisan activity and the gradual German defeat across Europe. There will be significant coverage of the SS activity as Germany starts to lose and the war “systems” collapse and people and nations jockey for influence and power.
Fey was a granddaughter of Admiral Tirpitz (on her mother’s side), her father was a German ambassador to Italy in the 1930s – appointed by the pre-Hitler regime he will be replaced in 1935. Fey will have met her husband an Italian aristocrat with wide ranging influential links across Italy and with the marriage she will settle at Braza in the Udine region. This is an old family estate run on the Contadini system of tenants. She will see this as a safe haven for herself and her boys. With Italy’s transfer from the German axis her husband, at first a partisan, will settle and join the government of the new independent Italy to the south. Her family in Germany, in spite of being anti-Nazi, still has influence of a sort. But once her father is embroiled in the 1944 attempted assassination plot on Hitler he will be executed and Fey will become one of the “Kin” – who Hitler has vowed to exterminate. Arrested, she will subsequently become one of Himmler’s “hostages” and will be moved from SS camp to camp as Germany collapses, often in the company of the “Prominenten”. Her part of her life is detailed here, particularly set against the disintegration of the wider prison work and extermination camp system.
Obviously war brings a number of risks up to and including death – some more planned but much of it entirely random. Often a simple action (or not) will have long term implications for oneself or others. This book will detail the choices that Fey (and others) made. She had the advantage of wealth and a group of influential family and friends that meant her choices were wider and her route was different from many, the risks operating on a different pathway to most. But the impact on the people could be just as painful. So this book is important in throwing detailed light on aspects of the War’s “management” that readers might be unaware of. But behind that is the harsh treatment of small children – who are considered irrelevant in the scale of things.
I would describe this book as factual and focused on a family of privilege. Expect very little real warmth or feelings of the people themselves – that seems to be lacking in the telling. It is something the reader will have to bring with their own imagination and experiences. The boys, too, are largely “lost” in the wider story. This is not perhaps as compelling as Bailey’s other books – but is an important read for those who want to understand the war. Fey and her life are firmly placed in their various contexts and little is airbrushed out.

This is another fantastic historical saga from Catherine Bailey that tells the true story of two young brothers, taken from their mother and placed in a Nazi orphanage during the Second World War. Their grandfather, Ulrich von Hassell was the German ambassador to Italy and it was his actions against Hitler that led to their punishment. The book is written with great factual detail and really brings to life the horrible realities of war on a personal level.
I have also read Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey and found both books to be fascinating. Her writing style brings these sad events to life, but I do feel her books are over long which can take some enjoyment from them.

I somehow didn't find this as gripping as Bailey's 'The Secret Rooms': there is an emotive human story at its heart but the approach to telling it felt a bit meandering in my case, and the characters didn't quite come to life as much as I'd have liked. I loved the lack of sentimentality in Bailey's previous book but here the fate of the two boys in Nazi orphanages and camps felt too much like Nazi horror porn...

A well researched book of shocking events from a family viewpoint of Second World War. Shocking revelations of the inhuman atrocities that took place. The blood from the viewpoint of one family is gripping right from the start, the main character Fey makes you feel for her pain as she goes through the horrors that befall her and her family.
A historical book but produced via a storyline that grips you from the start.
Catherine Bailey should be proud of this book and I hope people read it to appreciate the true horrors of Nazi Germany.